The SEO scenario is constantly evolving, as the search engines try more and more to provide users with the results, they expect to get in return for their search quarries. However, the baseline of SEO is still the same and would remain the same for the foreseeable future. For example, you cannot get a good ranking in the search results only by targeting keywords, but selecting the correct keywords is still one of the most important aspects of SEO.
Keywords are not only important in getting organic rankings and traffic but also serve as a way of getting loyal, returning visitors. However, the SEO game has progressed far beyond keywords. Let’s see the most important things about SEO that are important in today’s SEO scenario.
Make sure your website is fast
Gone are the days when slow websites were not a problem. Websites used to take minutes to load, and people were still cool with that, but not anymore. A recent study has shown that a delay of 1 second in the loading of a website can lead to a 7% loss in conversion. Another survey has also found that if a website takes more than 10 seconds to load, 40% of the people abandon it. So, if you are aiming to run a successful website that is beneficial for you, better make that page load quickly. Studies have shown that people tend to think that a slow loading site is not a trustworthy one. It is good to remove any plug-in extension or line of code that slows your pages down and make sure that your site loads as fast as possible. Google also considers the page loading speed as a factor in SEO, so having a fast loading site will get you a place high up in the search results.
Linking to other sites is critical
You might think that linking to other sites is a bad practice, as it will take visitors away from your site to a competitor’s, but that’s not the case. Backlinks remain one of the most aspects of Google search engine optimization. Link building does not only give you a higher organic rank in search results but also helps your reader to get authentic information from credible sources. Research has shown that any webpage is just 7 links away from any other site, so make links and link others; the more linked your page is, the better a rank it will get in organic results.
Ask People to link back to you
Getting your pages linked by other people is also very important. Google considers the page more important that is mentioned or linked by a lot of webpages of the same or related niches. Link building is a give-and-take thing. You link to other people’s pages, and in return, they link to your pages. This benefits both, as well as the visitors of both websites, as they get to know authentic information from credible sources referred by people they trust.
Write for People
It is not a good practice to write content stuffed with Keywords that are grammatically incorrect and is of no use to the people visiting your website. You might get better search results rank by writing content focused on specific keywords, but in the end, you want to develop a loyal viewer base; people who trust you and come to your site again and again. Write your content for people and not merely for the search engine’s algorithms.
Add Proper Meta description to your pages
The meta description is the information at the start of a web page that Google shows when the page appears in search results. This is the text that will make people click on your link and open your website. Make sure the text is relevant, authentic, and is not copied. You can quote text from other websites by giving them the credit, but making copied content every time will get you nowhere.
To sum up:
SEO is a complicated field. No search engine ever reveals the exact mechanism or criteria they use to rank webpages. But, we can reverse engineer the process and use the hit and trial method to make sure a webpage gets a good rank in the search results of the search engine we are focusing on. SEO science keeps improving with time, and changes are constantly made to make the user experience better. However, some things, like link building, appropriate use of keywords, and page speed, remain to be a fundamental part of the SEO game. Make sure that you don’t break any of the rules formulated by the search engine while trying to get better ranks in search results, or you might get banned forever.